


Six Minutes

by howelleheir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence, M/M, alternate origin story - Crossbones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:55:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howelleheir/pseuds/howelleheir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ringing, high-pitched and steady, and pounding in his ears. A pressure like his head might explode. He pulls himself up off the floor. The others are starting to do the same. Someone’s prying the elevator doors open and the sound bounces around behind his eyes like a jackhammer.<br/>Rumlow squats down beside Rollins. He’s still out.<br/>There’s a trickle blood around his mouth.<br/>He’s not breathing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Minutes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aceofhearts88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/gifts).



> Unbeta'd mess, because I cannot make myself re-read this tragedy. Proceed with caution.

Ringing, high-pitched and steady, and pounding in his ears. A pressure like his head might explode. He pulls himself up off the floor. The others are starting to do the same. Someone’s prying the elevator doors open and the sound bounces around behind his eyes like a jackhammer.

Rumlow squats down beside Rollins. He’s still out.

There’s a trickle blood around his mouth.

He’s not breathing.

The feeling in his gut makes him whip around to make sure the elevator hasn’t suddenly started dropping again. He can’t find his voice, can’t get enough air behind it. Then suddenly, it comes all at once, and he’s shouting, “Medical! Get medical in here now!”

How long had he not been breathing?

He went down early in the fight. Cap and hit him in the throat and he collapsed. Rumlow went down last. Three minutes.

One of the guys from the team in the hall, Mason, drops down through the narrow opening, looks him over. Rumlow shifts out of his way to sit by Rollins’ feet.

“Airway’s blocked,” he grunts. Rummages in his kit, doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

Four minutes.

“Any of you guys have a ballpoint pen?” Mason calls. The rest of the team have all climbed up through the opening, but Dulles leans down and tosses Mason a pen from his breast pocket. Mason passes the pen to Rumlow. “Take that apart. I just need the tube.”

Rumlow can’t get the pen apart. His hands are shaking. Mason gets a short, sharp knife from a holster on his thigh and cuts into Rollins’ throat. The pen finally comes apart. Mason takes the tube from Rumlow and pushes it into the incision. Breathes into it twice. Pulls back shaking his head. Repositions the tube. Two more breaths.

Five minutes.

“Where’s that med team?!” Mason shouts. “Come on, come on, come on! I’m gonna lose him!”

Three medics drop into the elevator.

“Spinal injury?” one asks.

Mason says, “No.”

“Okay, let’s get him out of here.”

The three of them lift Rollins up to the floor above and climb out after him. Mason holds a hand out to Rumlow, who takes it and climbs unsteadily to his feet.

Six minutes.

It’s too late.

He’s gone.

 

Everything’s a blur until he’s on the road. He gets to Lehigh ahead of the stolen car and waits out of sight until Cap breaks the lock on the bunker. He needs them inside. That’s where he’s going to do it. Slips in behind them. He’ll have to take Romanoff out first. Cap’ll hold back in a fight. She won’t. Drawing his sidearm, he takes advantage of the change of light to take two shots. They hit. Center of mass. Romanoff goes down. Rumlow ducks out of sight before Cap can turn, sending his shield flying toward the shots.

He’s dragging Romanoff to cover, trying to do a little field triage.

Good.

Let him.

Let him watch her die.

Rumlow keeps an eye on them from his hiding place. Cap starts to stand. He’s coming back around. Too risky to let him go on the offensive. Rumlow pulls a canister from his belt and tosses it toward Cap, pulling his shirt up over his nose and mouth. The gas it releases brings Cap to his knees within a few seconds. He puts up a fight after that, doesn’t want to go down, but it’s powerful stuff. He’s flat on his face in under a minute.

Time to get to work.

 

The timer’s set for six minutes. Cap’s on the floor, wrists mag-cuffed to his ankles around a steel beam. He won’t get out of this. As his eyes flutter open, he starts to struggle, and Rumlow squats down, setting his phone within Cap’s line of sight and starting the countdown.

“You see that, Rogers?” he says, nodding toward the screen. “That’s _this_ getting personal. _Real_ fucking personal. You know what it is?”

Poor guy looks confused. He doesn’t even realize what he did.

He’ll know.

“That,” Rumlow continues, his voice starting to break. “Is how long it took Jack to die after you crushed his throat.”

“Rumlow, I…” He sounds sorry.

“You what? Didn’t mean to? Don’t know your own strength? No, no, no...that’s not it. You just don’t care. You think it’s _okay_ for you to leave a trail of bodies. If someone’s going up against you they _must_ deserve it, right? I got news for you, Cap. He didn’t fucking deserve it.”

Five minutes.

Now he’s struggling, but it’s no good. Even he can’t break through the mag cuffs once they’re locked in. There’s a wet _pop_ as he dislocates his own shoulder trying.

Rumlow sits back and draws his sidearm, holding it loosely as he crosses his legs and looks on.

Four minutes.

“We were together, you know,” he says quietly. It’s important that Cap knows exactly what he took. “For sixteen years. We didn’t talk about it at work, but...most of the guys knew. Do you know what it’s like to spend sixteen years of your life with somebody?”

Cap stops struggling and looks Rumlow in the eye. “Actually,” he says, still out of breath, “I do. I do, and I lost him, too. I know how you’re feeling right now. I know you’re angry. But you don’t have to do this. You can-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rumlow snaps. “Think I don’t know what you’re doing? Find a way to relate, make ‘em sympathize with you, de-escalate. It’s not gonna work this time. Negotiation went off the table when you killed the one good thing I had going.”

Three minutes.

“I’m not trying to manipulate you. I mean it,” he says. There’s a little panic in his voice now, a little fear. “I’m telling the truth. His name was Bucky. He was-”

Rumlow laughs harshly.

What a _gift_. This is perfect.

“Bucky? Sergeant James Barnes?”

“Yes, he-”

“I know my history, Cap. I know who he is. Except, you didn’t lose him. He survived the war. Got picked up by the Russians.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He got experimented on as a POW. That knock-off super soldier serum did it’s job and he made it out just fine. He’s still alive.”

“That’s not-”

“It is. Doesn’t matter if you believe me. You’ve only got two minutes left. They call him the Winter Soldier now. He works for us. SHIELD. Hydra. Whatever you want to call it. I don’t really have time to explain that, so don’t ask. Point is, your old pal _Bucky’s_ been right under your nose for the last two years. We won’t need him once Insight goes up, though. Maybe I’ll ask to put him down myself. It’s only fair.”

Cap’s mouth is open, and his eyes are flicking back and forth. He’s putting two and two together. He doesn’t want to believe it, but he knows Rumlow’s telling the truth. Things are making sense, and it’s crushing him.

One minute.

Rumlow cocks his sidearm.

Now Cap’s really fighting. Now he has something to fight for. But there’s no way out.

Rumlow’s com clicks on. “Rumlow, what’s your location?” Anderson says over the channel.

“I’m at Lehigh,” he responds.

“Clear out now. Airstrike incoming.”

No. Not yet. There’s still thirty seconds on the clock.

“Did you copy that? Airstrike incoming. Clear the area.”

Twenty-seven. Twenty-six. Twenty-five.

“Damn it, Rumlow, do you copy?! Take cover!”

“Let’s get out of here, Rumlow,” Cap says. God, he sounds desperate. “After that, you can do whatever you need to do, but let’s just get out of here right now.”

Rumlow shakes his head, pressing the muzzle between Cap’s eyes. He can hear the drone’s engine in the distance. _Just ten more seconds._

“Look me in the eye,” he snaps. Cap is more than happy to oblige. Maybe he thinks it’ll make this more difficult. It won’t. It doesn’t.

The drone grows louder.

The timer’s alarm starts beeping.

“Please, don’t-”

He pulls the trigger and cuts the plea short.

Feels the kickback.

A high whistle of the incoming missile.

Then everything is fire.

  



End file.
